The Artemis program is NASA’s campaign to return astronauts to the Moon and keep them working there. It runs on the Space Launch System rocket, the Orion crew capsule, commercial landers from SpaceX and Blue Origin, a new spacesuit, and a small station in lunar orbit called Gateway. Two Artemis missions have flown: an uncrewed loop around the Moon in November 2022, and a crewed flyby in April 2026.
Everything after that is planned rather than flown. NASA restructured the sequence on February 27, 2026, moving the first crewed landing from Artemis III to Artemis IV and turning Artemis III into a rehearsal in Earth orbit. Dates beyond 2026 are NASA targets, and Artemis targets have moved more than once.
What the Artemis Program Is
The Artemis program is NASA’s effort to land astronauts near the Moon’s south pole and build hardware for repeat visits rather than single trips. NASA named it after Apollo’s twin sister. Apollo showed a landing was possible, and Artemis is meant to make one repeatable.
The south pole is the destination because permanently shadowed craters there may hold water ice. Mining that ice would give a crew drinking water, breathable oxygen, and propellant for the ride home. A crew that makes its own supplies does not have to haul every consumable up from Earth. NASA sets out the campaign goals on its Artemis program page.
Artemis is the largest single piece of the modern US space program, and it is not the only crewed lunar effort under way. China has stated a goal of landing astronauts before 2030 and is building its own rocket and lander for the job, covered in China’s crewed Moon plan.
The Artemis Missions in Order
Two Artemis missions have flown and three more are on NASA’s published manifest, as of September 2026.
| Mission | Status as of 2026 | Date | What it does |
|---|---|---|---|
| Artemis I | Flown | November 2022 | Uncrewed Orion capsule looped around the Moon to test SLS and re-entry |
| Artemis II | Flown | April 1 to 10, 2026 | Four astronauts flew around the Moon and returned, no landing |
| Artemis III | Scheduled | 2027 | Crewed test flight in low Earth orbit, docking with a commercial lander |
| Artemis IV | Planned | Early 2028 | First crewed landing, two astronauts near the south pole |
| Artemis V | Planned | No published date | First flight of the Blue Origin lander |
Artemis II ended nine days after it began. It launched on April 1, 2026 and splashed down in the Pacific on April 10. NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch flew it alongside Jeremy Hansen of the Canadian Space Agency. It was the first crewed flight of Orion, and it proved the capsule’s life support and heat shield on a real lunar return.
Artemis III Is a Crewed Test Flight in Earth Orbit
Artemis III no longer attempts a Moon landing. NASA changed the mission in its February 27, 2026 architecture update, and the new version keeps four astronauts in low Earth orbit to rehearse the steps a landing depends on. The published plan covers rendezvous and docking with one or both commercial landers, checkout of life support, communications and propulsion while docked, and a test of the new spacesuits.
NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman tied the decision to flight rate and a standard vehicle configuration. That approach, he said, “is how we achieved the near-impossible in 1969 and it is how we will do it again.” The same update standardized the SLS and Orion configuration across missions instead of switching to a heavier upgraded version mid-program.
NASA’s Artemis III mission page lists 2027. Treat that as the current target rather than a fixed date, because a docking rehearsal cannot happen until at least one lander is ready to fly.
What Artemis IV and Artemis V Are For
Artemis IV is planned as the first crewed landing of the program, in early 2028. Four astronauts launch, two descend to the surface, and the surface pair spend roughly a week near the south pole collecting samples and testing how people work in that terrain. NASA describes the mission on its Artemis IV page.
Artemis V exists to prove the second lander and to start the yearly cadence. NASA’s February 2026 update states a goal of at least one surface landing per year after the first one, which only works if two independent landers are flying. Having a second supplier means a stand-down on one vehicle does not stop Artemis.
The Hardware Every Artemis Mission Depends On
Artemis depends on six systems, and a delay in any one of them moves the whole mission.
- The Space Launch System. SLS is the expendable super-heavy rocket that throws Orion and its crew onto a lunar trajectory in one launch. No orbital assembly is needed for the crewed leg. The SLS rocket guide covers its stages, its Shuttle-era engines, and the cost argument around it.
- Orion. Orion is the capsule that houses the crew for the multi-week trip and brings them through re-entry at lunar return speed. Lockheed Martin builds it for NASA.
- The European Service Module. Bolted behind Orion, the service module supplies “electricity, water, oxygen and nitrogen” and keeps the spacecraft on course, according to ESA. Airbus Defense and Space is the prime contractor, described on ESA’s European Service Module page.
- The Human Landing System. Orion cannot land. A separate lander meets the crew in space and carries two of them down and back. The landing date therefore rests on a contractor’s vehicle rather than on NASA’s rocket.
- The spacesuit. Axiom Extravehicular Mobility Unit, built by Axiom Space, is the suit astronauts will wear on the surface. Without a flight-ready suit there is no surface work, only a landing. Axiom is separately building one of the leading commercial space stations meant to succeed the ISS in low Earth orbit, a parallel program to its Artemis suit work.
Gateway is the sixth system. It is a small station in lunar orbit, launching no earlier than 2027, that gives crews somewhere to dock, live, and stage surface trips from. NASA’s Gateway page reports the HALO habitation module has arrived in the United States and its power system has been switched on for the first time.
The Two Human Landing Systems Compared
NASA holds firm-fixed-price contracts with two lander suppliers, and each is assigned to different missions.
| SpaceX Starship HLS | Blue Origin Blue Moon MK2 | |
|---|---|---|
| Contract awarded | April 2021, $2.89 billion | May 2023, $3.4 billion |
| Assigned missions | Artemis III and Artemis IV | Artemis V |
| Launched by | Starship, with in-orbit refuelling | New Glenn |
| Cargo variant | Yes, under development | Yes, under development |
| Role in the program | Carries the first Artemis crew to the surface | Provides the second, independent route down |
Starship HLS is a variant of the vehicle covered in the Starship explainer, and it needs propellant transfer between two Starships in orbit before it can leave for the Moon. That refuelling step has no flown precedent at this scale, which makes it the single biggest technical unknown in the landing schedule. For how the two American super-heavy rockets divide the work, see Starship vs SLS. Blue Moon MK2 rides on Blue Origin’s own launcher, described in the New Glenn guide.
The Space Agencies Partnering on Artemis
NASA leads Artemis. Four other space agencies have committed hardware to it. ESA supplies Orion’s service module and two Gateway modules, Lunar I-Hab and Lunar View. JAXA provides Lunar I-Hab’s life support and thermal systems plus a pressurized rover. The Canadian Space Agency builds Canadarm3, the robotic arm that will berth visiting vehicles and install payloads on Gateway. The Mohammed bin Rashid Space Centre contributes an airlock. NASA lists these commitments on its Gateway international partners page.
The Artemis Accords are a separate diplomatic track from the hardware. They set out principles for civil space exploration, and 71 nations had signed as of August 31, 2026, according to NASA’s Accords page. Signing does not commit a country to build Artemis hardware, so treat the signatory count as a measure of diplomatic alignment rather than of program capacity.
Where SpaceX Fits in the Artemis Program
SpaceX builds landers under contract to NASA. It does not own or direct Artemis. NASA selected SpaceX in April 2021 under a $2.89 billion firm-fixed-price contract to build the crewed lunar lander, announced in NASA’s lander selection release. NASA’s human landing systems reference page now assigns Starship HLS to both Artemis III and Artemis IV.
Blue Origin holds the second contract, worth $3.4 billion and awarded in May 2023 for Artemis V. Both companies are also building cargo versions of their crew landers to deliver rovers and habitat modules to the surface, which is how Artemis plans to place equipment before people need it.
Elon Musk is SpaceX’s chief executive and has no role in NASA’s decision-making on Artemis. The architecture, the mission sequence, and the crew assignments are NASA’s, and the landers are procured services bought against NASA requirements.
How to Read the Artemis Schedule
Announced Artemis dates have moved repeatedly, so hardware milestones are the more reliable signal. Three checkpoints track the 2028 landing target more closely than any announced date does:
- An uncrewed Starship-to-Starship propellant transfer. Until propellant moves between two vehicles in orbit, Starship HLS cannot depart for the Moon.
- A flight-ready Axiom spacesuit. NASA’s Office of Inspector General reported in April 2026 that Axiom is planning suit demonstration readiness in late 2027, which leaves little margin before an early 2028 landing.
- An uncrewed lander landing. Both HLS contracts require a demonstration to the surface without crew before astronauts ride down.
The Inspector General’s March 10, 2026 review of the lander contracts found schedule delays and integration problems at both providers, plus gaps in NASA’s testing posture and crew survival analyses. The review also recorded a limitation Artemis has not solved. NASA has no capability to rescue a crew stranded on the lunar surface or in space. Cost growth has been contained by comparison, with SpaceX’s contracts up about 6 percent and Blue Origin’s by less than 1 percent.
To track the Artemis program as it moves, check each mission’s own NASA page rather than a summary. The Artemis III and Artemis IV pages carry the scheduled year in their mission facts panel, and NASA updates them when a date changes.